Have You Fallen in Love with Jesus?

Hardly anything is better than those first feelings of falling in love. A new—and perhaps unexpected— interest kindles in our hearts. Our emotions and desires are stirred, amazing and even frightening us sometimes. Flutters of excitement cause us to say and do things we wouldn’t under “normal” circumstances. Suddenly, we find ourselves on a pathway of new discovery, and so the journey of love begins.

Many people, Christians included, don’t realize that Jesus Himself is on a journey of love with each one of us. His deep, personal interest in His beloved ones is never casual or off-hand. He has committed Himself to having the closest fellowship imaginable with us individually and corporately. While we may be inclined to keep Jesus at arm’s length, He is content with nothing less than communing with us in the deepest ways possible. The good news is that He is totally committed to helping us love Him as fully as He loves us. This is the purpose of the Christian life.

something more. Our hearts are awakened to new possibilities of nearness.

I remember being a young Jewish person back in 1978. I knew nothing about Yeshua, but one night when I was twenty years old the Lord appeared to me in a vision. It happened in the middle of a summer night. No one had witnessed to me. I had never read the New Testament. Jesus wasn’t even on my radar screen. I was a Jew. I never thought about Jesus. But Yeshua revealed Himself to me. I relate this life-changing experience in my book Called to Breakthrough. The point is that when I had that vision of Jesus, I knew the Lord was real, and I wanted more. I didn’t understand Christian doctrine yet. I had never read the Bible—but I hungered for more of what I had experienced, or rather who I had experienced.

All love for Jesus begins when Yeshua inspires that love. The Bible says we didn’t love Him first, but rather we love Him because He first loved us and shed His love abroad in our hearts (1 John 4:19; Rom. 5:5). These encounters with His love don’t have to happen in visions or in the middle of the night. Messiah Jesus encounters people in many different ways. Sometimes He does it when we are reading the Bible and we feel the Holy Spirit touching our hearts. He may speak to us through the words of a friend. He may come to us in some type of mystical way, in a dream, or in a deeply personal experience of His presence. But however it happens, once you know He is real, you will want more.

To read more from Rabbi Schneider’s ‘A Journey Into Divine Love,’ visit MyCharismaShop.com